Notes on Productivity Home Page

I routinely use two tools for knowledge
management: Lotus Notes and Mind Manager. I have long wished
for a single integrated solution to search desktop documents, Notes databases,
and MindManager maps. Well, it looks like at least one of these wishes
will be granted soon.

The makers of the X1
Desktop search tool are preparing to add support for Lotus Notes databases.
For the past week, I have been evaluating a beta release (I'm using ver.
5.1 Beta Rel 2, Build 1616zq) of the next generation of the X1 desktop
search tool. I'm really excited about the ability to use a single
search tool to search Lotus Notes databases in addition to the documents
on my local disk drive. Right now, the search functionality is limited
to mail databases, but I'm told that there are plans to add support for
any Notes database. When that happens, it will represent a significant
productivity boost for users of Lotus Notes.

One of the strong features of X1 is their support for a variety of document
types; they have extended this functionality to searching text information
stored within Notes as well. So far, my testing has gone reasonably
well; well enough to continue working with the product. Currently, there
is no indication in the returned search results display which database
the result came from, however, the basic mail folders are shown.

I would really like to see support for multiple databases -- at least
email, discussion, and doclib. I've worked out a way that this could be
done. Hopefully, they have, too.

All in all, it's been a good experience so far and I plan to continue working
with the product as it matures.

And my other wishes? I've spoken with one of the representatives
from X1 who assured me that he would post a link to my wishes
on the X1 forum.

We'll see what happens.

If you are unfamiliar with X1, I recommend that you check out Marc Orchant's
reviews
of the product. Posted with permission from the folks at X1.

Discussion/Comments (1):

Take a look at Optimal Desktop. It offers a matrix tabbed interface for bookmarking and accessing url's, rss feeds, files and folders.

You can organize projects by context and not type alone. You can search your bookmarks, rss headlines. You can also integrate Google Desktop Search in the toolbar and search for your files and emails in the same space.

You can aggregate rss headlines, and file links in a special folder and publish the links as an XML file. Creating your own rss files on the fly is a very powerful KM tool.

You can also publish links in a tabbed browser interface. Check out my blog to see how I am using all of this. { Link }